The city of Newberry is changing rapidly, impacting local elections and the school system.
Its population has doubled in the last 20 years to almost 8,000 residents and there’s a movement to turn its public schools into charter schools. And in April, an election for three of the five city commissioner positions were canceled when only the incumbents ran for office.
As a result, City commissioners Rick Coleman (Group I), Mark Clark (Group II) and Monty Farnsworth (Group III) will retain office for another two-year term. Coleman has been serving for Group I for 10 years, Clark has been serving for Group II for almost four years and Farnsworth has served the longest time in office for Group III for more than 20 years.
Keisha McKenzie said she didn’t even know that there was an election, let alone that it was canceled.
“That’s not good,” said the 47-year-old, who’s been living in Newberry since 2018. “That means nobody cares about the community or wants to do anything for the community.”
But that’s not necessarily the case, said Paul Hope, who’s lived in Newberry for eight years. He said he thinks no one applied to run for office because people are satisfied with how well elected officials have been running the city.
“I feel like they always make decisions based on putting themselves in our shoes,” the 33-year-old Newberry resident said. “They think about what impact that’s gonna have, positive or negative.”
Cheryl Davis, who has been living in Newberry for six years, said she tries to keep up with local politics and thinks the city government has room for improvement. One of those improvements, she added, is to listen to the concerns of the people.
“They can always do better,” she said. “I think we as a group can always do better, but the government also needs input from the community and support from the community.”
Matthew Green, a traveling surgical technician living in Newberry, expressed the same concern on local and national levels. “What we’re lacking is honesty,” he said. “Doing the things that are right for the people, not for themselves.”
Newberry’s city commissioners work alongside the mayor to help run the city. The commissioners’ responsibilities include setting policies in areas like economic development, public works, finance and parks and recreation. The commissioners also adopt budgets, ordinances and resolutions, as well as levy taxes.
Both the mayor and city commissioners earn $10,751 annually, as reported by the Florida League of Cities for fiscal year 2020.
Movement for charter schools
Another concern for the people of Newberry is its growing population and how it has impacted school capacity in the area.
Residents like Paul Hope said it’s inevitable that a flourishing city like Newberry would have an increase in population, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
“Any successful community is going to have an influx of growth,” he said. “You can’t keep people away from a good thing.”
However, the result of Newberry’s population growth left some schools with too many students, Hope said. The city’s solution was to add portable classrooms, which Hope called “band-aids” and not a long-term solution. He said these kinds of issues make Newberry residents feel unheard.
An initiative called Education First proposed converting Newberry Elementary School, Oak View Middle School and Newberry High School into public charter schools starting in the 2025-2026 school year. The conversion to charter, according to the initiative, would combat overcapacity issues and eliminate the need for portable classrooms, although the website did not make clear how turning public schools into charter schools would exactly fix those issues.
Parents and teachers voted in April to pass the proposal, obtaining the required minimum of 50% parent and teacher participation. The results were in favor of Newberry Elementary School becoming a charter school in the 2025-2026 academic year.
However, the vote was tight, and one vote was deemed “ineligible” because a teacher used a parent ballot. This made the outcome somewhat murky, according to an opposition group called Save Our Schools Newberry.
But Newberry Mayor Jordan Marlowe said the Department of Education recognized the final vote, leaving Newberry Elementary School to be converted to a charter school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Votes for turning the middle school and high school into charter schools failed.
Next steps include naming a governing board as the elementary school transitions to a public charter school over the next year, according to the Education First for Newberry website.
“We are thrilled with this news and are incredibly excited to work closely with administrators, teachers, parents and the district as we prepare our charter application,” the website quoted Chelsea Leming, a Newberry Elementary School parent and board member of Education First for Newberry, in a May 7 update.
“We wish to thank Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton for her service in conducting the election and counting the votes. And we thank the Department of Education for clarifying the law in this important matter.”